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She nods, but her eyes fill almost immediately. I sit beside her, and after a few seconds of silence, she reaches for my hand.

“Your father had enormous faith in both of you,” she says. “He always did.”

“I know,” I reply.

“No,” she says quietly.

“I don’t think you always do.”

I look at her, and Eleanor squeezes my hand before continuing. “He trusted Sebastian because Sebastian understands people in ways most men never will. He trusted you because you see structure, consequence and responsibility before everyone else in the room.”

Her voice wavers, but she keeps going.

“That doesn’t mean you have to carry everything alone.”

“I know,” I say.

“You say that very easily.”

I almost smile, but there is nothing funny in the room. Eleanor studies me for a moment before speaking again.

“Ross, your father prepared you for leadership,” she says.

“He did not prepare you to stop being a person.”

The words land harder than I expect, and I look down at our joined hands. “I don’t know what that looks like right now.”

“You don’t have to know yet,” she says.

Her eyes fill again, and this time she does not fight it.

“I keep thinking he is going to walk through the door,” she says, and her voice breaks before she can finish the thought.

I put my arm around her as she leans into me, and for a while I simply hold her while she cries.

The door opens quietly several minutes later, and Sebastian steps inside. He stops when he sees us, then crosses the room and sits on my mother’s other side. Eleanor reaches for him immediately, and Sebastian takes her hand without saying anything.

We sit together in silence for a while before Sebastian finally looks over at me.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he says.

“You’re not carrying this by yourself.”

“I know,” I reply.

Sebastian holds my gaze.

“Whatever this looks like over the next few months, whatever they put on your desk, I’m there.”

“I know you are.”

He nods once, and that is enough. My mother closes her eyes while Sebastian keeps hold of her hand and I keep my arm around her.

For the first time since the funeral, the three of us sit together without lawyers, doctors, trustees or anyone else in the room, and the absence of everyone else makes the room feel different.

For a little while, we are not the Kensington family everyone is waiting on. We are simply a mother and her two sons trying to understand how to keep going without him.

Chapter Seventeen